Budget Hearing April 8

By Hannah W. Wever

Published: April 3, 2008

They may have successfully knocked a few pennies off of next year’s tax rate, but county officials may get an earful at next week’s public hearing for the decision to cut funding to several popular county programs.
In February, Rolfe presented the 2008-2009 county budget to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, warning of flat county revenue and increased county costs. The proposed budget totaled $165,568,671, a 15 percent increase over last year’s budget. To adequately fund everything in the proposed budget, the county would need to increase real estate taxes $.09.
“We’re doing more with less, except in those critical areas that have to do with life, health and safety issues,” he said.
Optional services which county government has provided in the past were scrutinized for potential savings.
The county-subsidized Child Garden daycare facility, despite popularity with parents who patronize the program, has been costing the county thousands of dollars and been unable to match its revenues to expenditures for years. The program employs five full-time and 10 part-time childcare providers for 63 children aged between six weeks and five years. But in spite of high enrollment, the program has been unable to break even for several years, Rolfe said, and costs the county more than $500,000 a year to maintain.
Over the course of a series of budget worksessions, the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ cut funding completely to the Child Garden daycare program, and ordered the doors to close permanently.
At a budget work session last month, District 5 Supervisor Lee Frame said he’d like to see Child Garden remain open, but only if it could break even. Teel Goodwin, Zack Burkett and Teri Pace, of Districts 2, 3 and 4, respectively said they thought privatization of the facility was a better option. Goodwin said he had mixed feelings about closing the daycare facility.
“But for what we’re trying to do with the budget,” Goodwin said, “I don’t know how to keep it.”
Orange County Administrator Bill Rolfe projected that Child Garden would continue to hemorrhage money as long as the county continued to operate it.
“I don’t think you can put that thing on a cost-efficient basis,” Rolfe said. And allowing it to remain open, on the county dollar, until someone in the private sector agreed to take over was illogical.
Ultimately, supervisors decided it was time to pull the plug on the program. The Child Garden’s doors will close for good in August.
The county’s parks and recreation department was a casualty of widespread funding cuts, after county officials debated the logic of continuing substantial county subsidization of sports, before and after-school child care, and other programs and activities.
Frame suggested the county draw the line at 15 percent subsidization of parks and rec programs. After that, they’re on their own, relying on revenue or donations to break even or better. Rates to participate would have to be raised. The supervisors’ final decision to reduce funding for the parks and recreation to no greater than 15 percent per activity will save county taxpayers $521,075.
Several big ticket expenditures related to plans for the county’s future went under the supervisors’ microscope.
An ongoing county-wide wireless broadband project was shifted to a back burner and reduced the budget by $200,000 savings.
But it would be unwise to budge on funding a long-term water supply for the county, Rolfe told supervisors.
The proposed budget includes $334,000 for water reserve implementation, another long-term county initiative. Supervisors wondered if there was money to be saved there. But Rolfe didn’t advocate fiscal corner-cutting when it comes to a reliable water supply.
The 2008-2009 Orange County school budget’s proposed teacher salary increase and capital improvements funding were victims of supervisors’ savings slashes.
The amount of money Orange County Schools requested for a teacher salary raise next year was decreased. Educators will get a 4.5 percent increase rather than the 5.5 percent raise school officials first requested. But that saves taxpayers $214,753.
“The board reduced the school funding by $443,053 that was identified as step increases. At the request of supervisors, the school board provided data regarding the number of teachers at each step, and they do not significantly fluctuate from year to year. Therefore, the school can continue to give steps, but due to turnover, no additional funding is required,” Orange County Director of Finance Karen Karasinski said.
Plans to pay for $1.1 million in construction and repair projects at county schools won’t be what school officials were hoping for in 2008-2009.
“They put in their budget $500,000 for facilities and yet they want another $1.1 million,” Frame said. After a lengthy discussion, supervisors sided with board chairman Mark Johnson: “We leave the $460,000 for the buses in their budget. The $500,000, we leave it in the capital improvements plan. The million, we drop out. If we dropped that extra 1,135,000 it would be a cent and a half on the tax rate,” Johnson observed.
Combining penny pinching throughout the proposed 2008-2009 budget, including slashes to the parks and recreation department, Child Garden, teacher raises and school capital improvement projects, the proposed tax rate was cut to $0.47 per $100 of assessed valuation. That’s still an increase of $.05 over last year’s budget, but it’s down from the $.09 tax increase initially proposed in the 2009 budget.
The board of supervisors will hold a public hearing April 8 on the proposed 2008-2009 budget before they vote on whether to adopt it April 15.